The Somnibus: Book I - Finding the Mark (A Paranormal Thriller) Read online

  My sorrow became strength as the life power drained from this thing that had been hunting me. I pulled it closer, staring into its eyeless sockets. I enjoyed watching it struggle in its apparent suffering. Closing my eyes, I sought the energy needed to close the bridge. Apparently, Mort planned to bring it back with us.

  The energy thumped my chest, and I went hurling backward through the darkness. My eyes opened to find myself fighting the chains in my room. A deep exhale escaped my lungs as the pain in my chest subsided. The room fell quiet while my eyes searched for a sliver of light in the darkness. I listened for a sound of anything, familiar or otherwise. None came.

  My pupils found no hope for light, and my mind gave up the search after a few minutes. I fumbled for the lock that held me to the chains, but I didn’t know the combination.

  I sat in the darkness waiting for something to happen, but my eyes were heavy and my body drained, forcing my mind to surrender its consciousness.

  -Chapter 11-

  A small, focused beam of light found its way through the blinds and poked my eyes open. My vision blurred as I squinted in the sunlight, still chained without much room to move. Heavy breathing from the other side of the bed caught my attention. It sounded more rasping, the type of wheezing Grandma had made after emphysema seized control of her lungs. The chains were too tight to allow me to see over the bed. I craned my head to try to catch a glimpse of who was there. A form leaned against the wall on the other side of the bed.

  “Mort?”

  An audible grunt came, but nothing that made sense.

  I sat watching the shadow for any sign of life, when it rolled to the side and levered itself to its feet.

  I waited for who, or what, might pop up over the mattress. I breathed a sigh of relief when Mort stood up. He made his way around the bed to approach me, legs struggling while his hand reached down to steady himself on the bed. His head hung low and his back hunched, as he moved closer. My back pushed even closer to the wall.

  “Mort, are you okay?” Again, no response.

  He continued toward me with a shuffling movement until he stood over me, still not raising his chin. Mort sunk to his knees and fingered the padlock. He turned the dial for the correct code and the lock unlatched. I scurried away from the wall, but Mort remained on his knees with his head hanging low.

  I rushed to the door and unlocked it. The door creaked open and Mort raised his chin at last, revealing colorless, lifeless eyes.

  His head began to rock back and forth and he sat straight up on his knees. His neck creased backward, his head dropping into a queer position. Opening his mouth at the ceiling, Mort’s eyelids disappeared. His arms went rigid at his side as a soft light escaped his gaping mouth and lidless eyes. I remained frozen in the doorway, having no idea what was happening.

  The light intensified, causing me to take a step back. The beam emanating from his mouth grew by the second until I shielded my eyes from its blinding intensity. The air became thick with the familiar stench of death and metal. My ears burned with pain as a shrill scream filled the metallic air. My eyes squeezed shut while my hands covered my ears, and Mort went limp, folding to the floor. The ceiling above him smoldered, the room filling with the unmistakable smell of the Somnibus.

  I approached him as he lay in a heap, face down on the floor. I tapped the bottom of his foot with mine and took a step back. With no response, I moved closer and leaned down to touch his shoulder.

  “Mort?” I rolled him onto his back and put my ear to his mouth. He had a slight rise in his chest, but his breathing was irregular. His mouth hung open, and he inhaled greedily. I rocked back and he coughed before settling into a normal breathing pattern. His eyes filled with life as I got to my knees and sat over him.

  “Mort, are you okay?” His eyes fixed upward. The perfect outline of a Somnibus had been etched into the ceiling; the radiating tendrils and the tattered robe that gave way to the foul breezes of their world. After a few minutes, he sat up with his knees bent in front of him and his palms on the ground.

  “I need to rest.” He slinked back to the floor and closed his eyes.

  I left the room, leaving the door slightly open.

  -Chapter 12-

  We sat across from each other in the kitchen as Mort sipped from his coffee mug, holding it with both hands.

  Silence hung heavy in the air and I was reluctant to break it. I wanted to give him the time he needed, but I couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Well, are you ready to talk yet?”

  “Just give me a few more minutes to put everything together.”

  “Sure,” I said, although my mind screamed for an explanation.

  Mort finally spoke. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, is that Mallen guy, or thing, whatever he is, is he gone?”

  “He is for now. He’s not dead, but let’s just say he got a good ass kicking.” He took another sip from the mug.

  “What happened to him? It looked like you chewed him up and spit him out on the ceiling.”

  “That’s a good way of putting it.”

  “How did you do that? I mean, I know how you bridged me, but how did you capture him?”

  “I waited in the corner of your mind until he grabbed you. When he did, I took control of him and dragged him into my body. Mallen is one tough bastard, and I took a good beating from him, too.”

  Mort sat back in his chair and lifted his shirt. My jaw hung open. From his sternum to his waist, a solid bruise, a palette of purple hues.

  “Holy shit! What the hell is that?”

  He pulled his shirt down and went back to his coffee.

  “When I took hold of Mallen and brought him into my body, he resisted a little.” He smirked. “He attempted to beat his way out from inside my chest. I held him until I needed to let him go in order keep myself alive.”

  “So can he come back?”

  “Yeah, he can come back, but it will be awhile. He’s going to need some time to bounce back from that beating. I’ve had a few scuffles with him, but that one’s going to leave a mark. He may even leave us alone after that.”

  “Is there any way to get rid of him for good? I mean, is it possible, or do they just live forever?”

  “They can be destroyed, but it comes at a price.”

  Mort lowered his chin into his cup.

  “What’s that?” I asked, half knowing the answer.

  “I could have destroyed him last night, but that would have been an end game event.” He tilted the mug to his lips.

  It took a second for the statement to hit me. After I processed his words, I wanted to hear it. I wanted to be clear on what that meant.

  “Meaning?”

  “If I had not released him, he would have been destroyed. I would have been reduced to an ashy stain on your carpet, but he would have been gone.” Mort stood and set his cup down on the table before he walked out of the room and headed upstairs.

  “I’m going to take a nap. I’ll see you later.”

  He had once again dropped a verbal bomb and walked out of the room, leaving my mind to deal with the fallout, reaching for the swirling pieces of information floating around my head.

  Why would Mort put himself in danger for me, and why hadn’t he ever answered me as to how he had not aged? I headed upstairs to take a nap myself.

  I wondered if I still had to lock myself up before I went to sleep. Mort said it would be awhile before Mallen tried to come back, if he tried at all.

  I decided to be on the safe side. I secured the harness around my waist and laid back, allowing my eyes to give in to their weight. My mind drifted off to sleep as my body relaxed.

  A prickling on the back of my neck nudged me awake. A figure stood over me in the dark. I sat up, my ears pounding. Mort stood at the side of my bed in his underwear with no shirt, his hands draped at his sides. I noticed his body was no longer a purple mosaic.

  “Mort, what are you doing?”

  His mouth gaped
open, and the siren of the Somnibus escaped his throat, invading my ears. The smell of stale blood and metal filled the air as I struggled against the lock to free myself. My hands shook with adrenaline and fear as the dial just spun in my fingers.

  “5-6-1-2. 5-6-1-2!” I repeated, hoping that just saying the numbers aloud would somehow release the lock.

  Mort climbed onto my bed and sprawled over the top of me with his face hanging low in toward mine. He had one leg on either side of me, his hands clasping my shoulders in place. A strand of drool hung from the corner of his mouth as he hovered closer to my face. I lay there, motionless, waiting for something to happen. His head faced the ceiling while his arms and legs released their support, and he lowered himself onto me. His full weight pressed me deeper into the mattress.

  He went rigid and fell to the side of the bed. My fingers jumped to the dial on the lock and I once again tried to release myself. Mort stood from the floor and leaned over me, grabbed the lock, and released it from my harness. I jumped from the bed and fell back into the wall. Mort leaned over the bed and snared me with his eyes.

  He spoke in a smooth tone, his words clear. “Get out. You have to get out of the house now. I can’t hold him much longer. I will take care of Mallen, and you take care of yourself. Remember everything I’ve told you. Now go. Take your trace and run!”

  His demeanor told me this was not the time to question him. I scrambled to the door, unlatched it, and pulled it closed before I ran down the hallway. I ran out the front door with the siren of the Somnibus screeching through the silent night air. I stood and watched from across the street as the upstairs window glowed with dancing light. Mort was in a battle for his life, and I could do nothing.

  -Chapter 13-

  Three hours passed before the sun broke the horizon. The lights in the upstairs room had finished dancing over two hours earlier, but I couldn’t get myself to move. Afraid to go back into the house, I waited outside. Not because I worried about getting hurt, but because I didn’t know how I would find Mort.

  I talked myself into walking up the stairs, fearing that I would find him lying there, in a heap. The thought of it caused a tear to slide down my cheek.

  My feet slowly made their way upstairs. The foul smell penetrated my nose, and I tasted metal in the air. As I walked down the hallway leading to my bedroom, my eyes watered from the rancid odor that hung heavy in the house.

  At the open doorway, my stomach twisted on itself. The putrid smell became too much to handle, and I braced myself on the doorframe as I heaved. I wiped my chin on my shoulder and held it there, using my arm to shelter my nose from as much of the stench as possible.

  As my eyes absorbed the scene my senses went numb the smell of death forgotten, all sound gone.

  On the floor at the foot of my bed, a stain saturated the carpet. I made my way to the mark and I remembered Mort telling me about the only way to destroy a Somnibus. This was it, the remains of Somnibus destruction. He’d given himself in order to protect me. I lowered my arm from my face and stood over the soiled carpet.

  After the initial shock wore off, I studied the stain, squinting at the image buried within. It looked as if Mort had been lying face up on the floor and had a huge pane of glass dropped upon him from a building. His face stared straight up, mouth agape with his hands chest high facing outward, like a shadowy mime, forever trapped behind a glass panel.

  I sat on the floor next to the stain while my mind wrapped around the fact that even though he had just come into my life, it seemed like I had known him forever. I’d had an unexplainable bond to him; something I didn’t know of before, but became aware of now that he was gone. Mort was now a blemish of a memory on my bedroom floor.

  I found myself grieving for a man I’d only known for a short time. My grief flowed from sadness to anger as I questioned why he’d died. I owed it to Mort to learn all I could about my power.

  After a couple of hours, I decided to figure out what, if anything, I needed to do. After all, I’d had a man living in my house who’d melted into my floor. Surely, someone would come looking for him. I wondered how I would explain it to the police if they came around asking questions.

  Then the thought occurred to me; I lived in his house, not mine. What would happen to the house since he’d just disappeared into the thin air?

  -Chapter 14-

  I stood in Mort’s room, going through the paperwork on the desk next to his computer. I spent the rest of the afternoon with the windows open, trying to rid the air of the constant, lingering reminder of his death. The chirping from my phone in my room brought a needed dose of reality back to my mind, and I walked down the hallway to answer my cell.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Mr. Black?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is David Honeycutt. I’m an attorney and it appears we had a mutual friend, Mort Bell.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I swallowed hard.

  “I believe you knew Mr. Bell…I mean Mort. He hated to be called Mr. Bell.” He chuckled.

  “Yes, I know. I mean, I guess I knew Mort. How did you know? I mean, how did you find out?”

  Honeycutt interrupted me when I struggled to form a complete sentence. “It doesn’t matter. As you’ve surely found out, he was a special individual.”

  “Yes he is, or was. What can I do for you, Mr. Honeycutt?”

  “Well, it’s more a matter of what I can do for you. He left his possessions to you in a document he had me draft just before buying and subsequently moving into your house. He gave me your contact information. He told me he would call me every morning at 7 a.m. and let the phone ring once. Until this morning, he did just that. He told me if the call was not received on time, it would mean he had met with an unfortunate event, and I was to contact the proper people to carry out the orders of the document.” Honeycutt ruffled through papers as I waited for more information. “Seeing as how it is late afternoon and I haven’t heard from Mort since yesterday, I will assume such an event has indeed occurred. Judging by your reaction, it appears as though I am correct in my assumption.”

  “Yes, you are. I’m sure he will not be contacting you in the morning,” The stain at my feet assured me of that.

  “Well then, we must get together so I can go over the documentation with you and have you sign the paperwork.”

  “What exactly is it that I’m getting?” I regretted asking as soon as I’d said it.

  “Well, there is the house, of course. You will receive full ownership of it. He paid cash, as you know, so the house is yours to do with as you please. There’s also a briefcase for you. I’m not sure what it contains, but he insisted that you….”

  I interrupted him mid-sentence.

  “Why was he so set on taking care of me?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that. He was a very private man, and as an attorney, I make it a habit not to pry into the lives of my clients. They tell me what they want me to know, and some things I’m better off not knowing.”

  “I understand. When would be a good time to meet? I can come to your office anytime.”

  “It would be easier if I came to your house. I don’t keep normal office hours anymore, I’m more of a freelance attorney. How about I stop by tomorrow morning around ten?”

  “Sounds good, I’ll see you then.”

  “Okay, have a good evening Mr. Black.”

  “You too. Thanks.”

  I hung up the phone and held it in my hand, realizing that may have been the call that changed the direction of my life. Now I wouldn’t have to find a new place to live.

  I recalled part of my conversation with Mr. Honeycutt. He said Mort had a briefcase as well. My mind raced with the possibilities of what might be inside.

  -Chapter 15-

  The doorbell rang at exactly ten o’clock the next morning. The night before, I had gone to sleep on the couch and had the best night’s sleep in a while. The room spun when I jumped up a little to
o quickly. I sat up and steadied myself before heading to the door. I peeked through the window at a man standing on the porch. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and opened the door, greeted by Mr. Honeycutt.

  “Hello, Mr. Black.”

  A portly man, Honeycutt’s wrinkled suit looked as though it had come from the back of his closet, from a time when he was younger and his waist a bit less expansive. The buttons on the front of the jacket struggled to hold their position and his belt, which hovered around his belly button, barely hung onto the first hole. His hair was disheveled, as if he had driven over in a convertible. Honeycutt’s eyes were pinched closed by the puffiness of his cheeks pushing up into his lower eyelids, and his upper eyelids drooped into his vision.

  “Good morning. Come in.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  He extended his ballooned right hand to me, and I shook it as best I could. I held the door open as he waddled through the doorway and stood in the foyer, awaiting directions.

  “Let’s talk in here,” I motioned him into the kitchen.

  I pulled the chair out at the end of the table, and Honeycutt sat down with a thud and a grunt. He removed his hat and put reading glasses on while I took the seat across from him. I waited with my hands crossed on the table in front of me while he shuffled through his briefcase and caught his breath.

  “Well, it looks as though you have once again become the owner of this beautiful house. I just need a couple of signatures from you.”

  “No problem.”

  I continued to speak while he tried to gather the papers and make some sense of them.

  “Yesterday on the phone, you mentioned other items he also wanted me to have.”